


Spinning Red

by stratumgermanitivum, whiskeyandspite



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Attempts were made at flirting, Canon-Typical Violence, Hannibal might as well be one, Hints at deviance, Inappropriate licking of evidence, M/M, Mentions of DBH background canon, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Connor storyline, Slow Burn, Slow Updates, Will is an Android, don't lick the evidence Will, season 1 rewrite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:13:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25867981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stratumgermanitivum/pseuds/stratumgermanitivum, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: "I can approach a scene with emotional detachment, see things for what they are, apply logic where otherwise emotions would threaten to take over an investigation. I feel I would be an incredible asset to your team, Agent Crawford.”“You feel that, do you?”“Just a turn of phrase,” Will’s lips tilted at the corners, the very definition of a plastic smile.Will is the RK700, sent by CyberLife to help the FBI with a particularly finnicky case.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 72
Kudos: 159
Collections: Reel Hannibal 2020





	Spinning Red

**Author's Note:**

> This will, in its completion, be a rewrite of S1 basically. Hopefully with more emotions coz of androids. And everyone loves androids. Right. Right??

“Agent Crawford? My name is Will. I’m the android sent by CyberLife to assist you with the Minnesota Shrike case."

Jack looked up at the man standing in the doorway of his office. Not a man. A fabrication of plastic and synthetic keratin, wrapped up in a grey CyberLife jacket and slacks, the top two buttons of its white shirt undone, the blue triangle displayed prominently on its arm.

“That’s great,” Jack said slowly, “But I don’t need an android to help me with the Minnesota Shrike Case. So you can head on back to Detroit.”

The android tilted its head to the side. Its curls, perfectly replicated by nano-tech, shifted like the curls of an ordinary man. Jack remembered when android hair used to be unnaturally stiff. He missed those days, back when you could tell man from his toys.

“The FBI tagged the eighth missing girl just this morning,” the android said, “and you’ll be heading out any minute now to speak with her parents. With all due respect, Agent Crawford, it seems like you could use my assistance.”

“How do you know that? We haven’t released any information to the press. There shouldn’t be any bytes on it. And I swear, if Freddie Lounds is leaking confidential--”

“As part of my mission, I have been granted security clearance to FBI databases.”

Great. Just great. So now the plastic could download all of Jack’s computer files into its memory chips. No one had bothered to consult  _ Jack _ on any of this, but why would they?

“Well, with all due respect,” Jack paused, consulting the model number stamped above the android’s breast pocket, “RK700, I don’t need a robot, I need human beings.”

“Please, Agent Crawford, call me Will. It’s less of a mouthful, don’t you think?” The android let itself further into Jack’s office, peering at the board Jack had set up for the Shrike case. No doubt memorizing it in .4 milliseconds, or whatever speed androids worked at these days.

“Well, Will, I need people who can understand motive, people who can empathize with and understand why the Shrike does what he does.”

“I can empathize with anybody. It’s part of my programming.” Will leaned closer to the board, his eyes locked on Sorenson’s headshot.

“They’re programming robots with  _ emotions _ now?“

“Not emotions,” Will corrected, “Although we can display facsimiles of them for the comfort of humans. But I  _ have _ been programmed with an in-depth understanding of them, and I am capable of learning. I spent the last few months studying forensic psychology at the FBI academy.”

“They let machines into classes?” Jack muttered, holding up a hand when RK700 -- Will -- attempted to answer him. “I wish they’d program you all with a mute button.”

Will didn’t respond. Perhaps they’d finally upgraded the models with the ability to detect sarcasm. Jack wasn’t above quite literally duct taping this thing’s mouth shut if he didn’t learn to keep it closed himself when input wasn’t welcome.

“Knowing how emotions work and understanding why they do are different things,” Jack added after a while, as Will continued to peruse the board, hands clasped modestly behind his back. “You could give me the entire chemical makeup of the hormones involved in love, and still know fuck all about what being in love means.”

“Of course,” Will agreed, straightening up again. “But that disadvantage works out to be advantageous for me in other ways. I can approach a scene with emotional detachment, see things for what they are, apply logic where otherwise emotions would threaten to take over an investigation. I feel I would be an incredible asset to your team, Agent Crawford.”

“You  _ feel _ that, do you?”

“Just a turn of phrase,” Will’s lips tilted at the corners, the very definition of a plastic smile. “May I accompany you on your way? It would be good to learn the dynamics of your team and the pace at which the investigation is currently going.”

“No.”

Will ducked his chin in a nod. “Very well. I suppose I’ll meet you at the family interviews, then, Agent Crawford.”

“And if I say no, I assume you’ll be there anyway?”

Will tilted his head. He looked thoughtful, a program no doubt installed to put people at ease. “I’m a machine, Agent Crawford. I have to follow through with the mission I’ve been programmed to accomplish.”

“Right. Fantastic.”

Fan-fucking-tastic.

* * *

No matter how well programmed, no matter how carefully they modeled them after humans, androids would always set  _ real _ humans on edge. Jack could have told people that, had anyone bothered to ask him.

Public opinion on Androids had deteriorated in the years since they’d first been brought onto the market, as they stole jobs and took over businesses. The Nichols’ were no exception. The wife went very stiff when Will introduced himself, her eyes darting from the android to Jack.

“Is this a joke?” Her husband asked, his voice high and frantic. “Our daughter is  _ missing _ and you're outsourcing your job to the  _ T-1000? _ ”

“RK700 was assigned to this case by higher powers,” Jack said smoothly, “but I assure you, I have my best men and women on this case--”

“How can you, when one spot’s been taken over by a hunk of plastic?” Mr. Nichols demanded. “How can it be any help finding my daughter when it can’t give a damn about her?”

Mrs. Nichols placed her hand on her husband’s arms, her wide, frightened eyes locked on Will. “Is he any good?” She whispered.

“Mrs. Nichols,” Will said, before Jack could speak. “I was programmed with thousands of forensics databases, all the information I need to analyze and interpret data. My body doubles as a forensics lab, allowing me to break down and understand evidence. I apologize that I cannot experience an emotional attachment to your daughter, but I promise that nothing matters more to me than finding out what happened to her.”

“Nothing  _ matters _ to you at all,” Mr. Nichols spat back, but he didn’t try to argue further. Instead, he turned his attention to Jack, the  _ human _ in charge of the investigation. “It isn’t like Elise to run away. There were pressures with school, but she’d never just--”

“She was supposed to come home this weekend,” Jack interrupted gently. Both the Nichols’ nodded.

“Elise was going to feed the cat,” Mrs. Nichols whispered. “She doesn’t like the dorms, sometimes she stays the weekend just to--”

“How’s the cat?”

Will’s question was met with a stony ringing silence. Finally it was Jack who sighed and attempted to warrant that brash outburst with an answer. “Why?”

“If Elise was supposed to feed it and didn’t, it would have been very hungry upon your return home,” Will pointed out, tilting his head just a touch as he addressed Mrs. Nichols. “Was the animal acting strange when you returned?”

“I… I didn’t notice,” she admitted, shaking her head before looking to her husband helplessly. Jack kept his eyes on Will and narrowed them. It was bad enough this thing was here at all, but the implication that the victim hadn’t been abducted from campus when most of the investigation had been levered on that information--

“May I see your daughter’s room, please?”

“We  _ told _ you, she lives in the dorms,” Mr. Nichols snapped. “Why would you need to go up there? The police were there this morning.”

“All the same,” Will replied, tone infuriatingly passive. “May I go up?”

When no one stepped up to actively stop him, Will made his way to the stairs and mounted them without further encouragement. Jack sighed and rubbed his eyes, offering a gentle apology to the two of them before following Will.

The cat was rubbing itself against the closed bedroom door of what Jack suspected to be Elise’s room. Will had crouched down to pet it.

“Why did you think of the cat?” Jack asked. Will looked up. 

“Animals have a less complex structure when it comes to emotions. They feel primal urges, to eat, to shelter, to reproduce. They feel fear and pleasure, but not guilt. Upon their return, Elise Nichols’ parents would not have yet been aware of her disappearance, they would not have been primed to worry for her safety. If they noticed the cat was acting unusual, they would have recalled that.”

Will stood up, holding out his palm over the doorknob but not touching it just yet.

“Since they did not, we can only assume that the cat had been fed, as planned. Who would have done that?”

“So she made it home,” Jack said slowly. “Fed the cat. Probably came up to her room. Damn.”

Police would have already been in Elise’s room, checking for signs of friends she might have visited, places she might have gone…

“Can you scan it?” Jack asked. “The room, if we go in, you might be able to see things the police missed?”

“Fingerprints, hair, saliva,” Will rattled off. “I also have a complex cross-referencing database to help me detect abnormalities in typical patterns.” At Jack’s look, he added, “Irregularities. Things that might be signs that something was put down too quickly, or left open when it normally wouldn’t be. If the room is tidy, but her desk is messy, that will flag in my programming.”

Jack nodded. It was a computer. A walking, talking computer, but a computer nonetheless. He could work with computers.

Will pushed open the door. Before Jack could even get a glimpse, his arm shot out, barring Jack from stepping forward. 

“What the  _ hell _ \--”

“I need you to alert and comfort the parents,” Will said calmly. “They’re likely to respond poorly if I’m the one who tells them.”

Looking past Will’s arm, Jack stiffened. Elise Nichols was tucked carefully into bed, still as the grave. 

“Jesus.”

“Should I call for ERT and forensics?” Will asked. Jack didn’t answer for a while. Then he just turned around and made his way downstairs. Will made a judgement call and sent the alert before stepping into the room properly.

Nothing looked amiss. In fact, it looked almost  _ too _ clean. It looked like the bedroom of a girl away at college, having tidied up so her parents would stop pestering her to do it later. A girl who now lay placed on her back in bed, still and quiet in death.

Will gave the room a brief scan for particles before coming to stand at the foot of the girl’s bed.

Her body temperature suggested she’d been dead for well over four hours. Her body must have been kept in this position long enough for rigor mortis not to mangle it into another shape. Her hair had been combed and rested spread over the bed covers, not quite reaching her bony wrists.

Will photographed the scene, adding the files to a folder he’d created earlier on Jack Crawford’s personal server. Once soft tissue was assessed - puncture wounds suggesting a rounded weapon, not a knife - Will X-rayed her. Broken ribs, pattern similar to those having received improper CPR, broken hyoid that correlated to the bruising around the victim’s neck.

With a blink, Will sent that information to Jack’s computer as well.

She had a spot of blood staining through her white nightgown. Will pressed his fingers to it-- with no DNA to leave behind, he didn’t need to worry about contaminating the crime scene. He brought his fingers to his lips, letting the soft, porous material of his tongue absorb the blood. He began to run a series of simulations in his head as he analyzed the blood. 

Blood sugar, normal. No traces of poisons or sedatives, so she was taken on strength alone. Antler velvet--scan for potential medical or spiritual links.

Abnormally high levels of alfa-fetoprotein. Will ran the scan again to double check. No alcohol in the bloodstream and Elise was an otherwise healthy 19-year-old, so that ruled out cirrhosis.

Tumors, then, on her liver. Will added ‘liver cancer’ to his file, syncing that with Jack’s database and starting a background process to check Elise’s medical records while he continued to observe.

“Well. That’s  _ really _ gross.”

Will could not be startled, but he only had so many processors to devote to his work, and all of them were already in use. He was only a prototype for a future android detective, brought out of the labs because the FBI saw no other choice. Will ended the simulation process-- he had already narrowed down the three most likely patterns for Elise’s murder-- and turned to face the woman who’d interrupted him. 

Agent Beverly Katz, the FBI database told him, seven years in forensics, several awards for outstanding performance, one citation for insubordination in her second year-- with a boss who’d since been ‘let go’ for unspecified reasons-- no criminal record, two unpaid parking tickets. 

“I don’t have taste buds,” Will pointed out, “The receptors on my tongue work on analyzing samples of DNA, running a spectrum of blood analyses--”

“So you’re my lab in a cute uncanny valley man-body,” Beverly surmised, amused. She had her arms crossed, but her hip was cocked to the side, half-open half-closed off body language, and her tone suggested she didn’t want the conversation to close off just yet. Regardless, Will stepped away from the body and gestured for her to move closer to do her job.

“I’m here to help however I can,”

“That’s how the script goes, yeah,” Beverly nodded, but she did come closer. “So, Legolas, what do your elf eyes see?”

Will faltered for a moment, his programming hadn’t included the full spectrum of mass media and cultural references. He had enough to get by, but he wasn’t built as a companion bot; he had just enough to draw connections between past cases with new ones for his system to run the proper statistical analysis. He could, of course, search the internet for the reference but it wasted valuable time.

Beverly snorted, shaking her head. “If that’s all it takes to stump you up, I’ll tell Jack to quote you to death. What did you find on the body?”

“Signs of strangulation and possible revival,” Will replied. “Cracked ribs, broken hyoid, bruising around the neck. No ligature marks, she wasn’t restrained, it’s likely her attacker surprised her. Perhaps woke her from sleep.”

“He killed her before he took her, then,” Beverly surmised. “Why did he bring her back?”

She investigated the body, slower than Will had, inch by inch. Will double-checked his scan results. 

“There’s antler velvet in the wounds,” Beverly said. 

“Antler velvet is sometimes used in healing salves and tonics,” Will recited, closing the search window in his peripheral. “He may have been attempting a metaphorical apology.”

Beverly blinked at him. “You guys understand metaphor, now?”

“I’m familiar with the basic concept,” Will explained. “Serial killers sometimes have artistic motivations; my metaphor and imagery database helps me to discern intent.”

“So our guy’s apologetic,” Beverly said. “He regretted killing her.”

“She didn’t suit his purposes,” Will said. “It’s possible he needs his victims to be in good health in order to achieve his goals.”

“Parents didn’t mention any health concerns. Usually we know right away if missing persons are going to need insulin or inhalers.”

“She hasn’t had her liver cancer diagnosed yet.”

Beverly stood up, setting a hand to her hip and cocking her eyebrow. “And you’ve gone and diagnosed it, have you? Damn, Nightrider, you’re good.”

Will blinked, before deciding on a nod as his only answer. Beverly snorted but didn’t press the matter as she bent over the body again. She took samples, conferring with Will once in a while to compare findings.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she said, finally snapping her gloves off. “You do my mountains of paperwork for me, and I’ll put a good word in for you with the bossman.”

Will smiled. “There might be ethical considerations,”

“With what, filing?” Bev shook her head, amused. “You’ve got a million times the processing power that I do, it’ll take you all of 4.8 seconds.”

“13.9,” Will corrected her, and Bev barked a laugh.

“Think about it, C3PO. I’ll catch you on the flipside. Good work.”

It was technically Beverly’s job to handle her own paperwork. Technically, Will should not have even had access to that part of the FBI system. 

But such matters were irrelevant to Will’s programming. What mattered was completing the mission he had been assigned. He could not complete the mission he’d been assigned if Jack Crawford continued to be resistant. 

Will set a background process to file Beverly’s findings. It would take a little longer with the rest of his work in the fore, but he could spare 30 seconds.

* * *

Jack’s mood had not improved by the time Will rejoined him at the bureau. By then, Will had finished running all of his processes and had formed a solid conclusion. 

“He’s consuming his victims.”

Jack looked up from his bulletin board, scowling. “He’s  _ what _ ?”

“The killer expressed regret through healing,” Will explained. “He couldn’t consume Elise because of the tumors on her liver.” As if on cue, Will’s internal email dinged with an alert regarding autopsy results. As expected, tumors. 

"He expressed  _ regret?" _ Jack repeated. Will blinked.

"It isn't uncommon for human beings to feel regret," he pointed out, and Jack shook his head.

"Human beings, sure, but not psychopaths."

"Are we certain he's a psychopath?"

"This might be hard for you to comprehend, but people don't usually kill  _ and eat _ other people," Jack snapped.

Will was aware of statistics, but decided not to point them out to Jack Crawford.

"Perhaps this is a new kind of psychopath," Will said instead. "A sensitive psychopath." He raised his voice just a little to speak over Jack as he scoffed. "Before the BSU was established, no terms existed for what human beings could do to each other. Those came with research and identification. The term serial killer was coined by your predecessors. Is it so unlikely that a sensitive psychopath could exist?"

"I thought machines taking over the world was unlikely," Jack retorted. "Yet here we fucking are. Look. If you think he's eating them, we'll look into the previous victims, see if there's signs of cannibalism there."

"I can get that information for you." Will sent it to Jack's email before the man could deny him, and moved to stand near the board Jack had been examining.

Similarities upon similarities with the victims; appearance, age, studying away from home… and the kindness the killer had shown his last victim, returning her to her childhood bed, laying her out in a semblance of comfort. The antler velvet.

"Proxies," Will murmured.

"What now?"

"These girls are proxies for who the killer actually wants to target," Will clarified, "but cannot. For one reason or another. Whoever they represent, he loves her. He loved them."

"There was no sign of sexual assault on any of the victims."

"There are different kinds of love, Agent Crawford," Will looked at him over his shoulder. "Your ancient Greeks listed several, but most have been lost in mass media representation. He does not love them sexually. But he loves them deeply."

“ _ Agape _ ,” Jack said.

“A child,” Will said. “Perhaps a niece, but a daughter is statistically more likely. She would be about the same height, same weight, same hair.”

Will ran a program. This was what he was built for, analyzing behavioral patterns, common motivations, accessing a carefully arranged database of human emotion. 

“He consumes them, so he wants to keep them with him. As much as he can; we never find any remnants.” Will tilted his head, cross referenced another analysis, scanned twenty-seven psychology articles. “She’s leaving home. 18 or 19, finishing high school, heading out into the world. He can’t stand the thought of losing her, but he can’t bear to consume her the way he consumes the others. They’re substitutes, but they won’t work forever. Eventually, she’ll try to leave.”

Jack looked at him for a long moment. “How the hell do you do that?” He finally asked. 

“It’s what I’m programmed to do.”

“You can’t  _ feel _ ,” Jack said. “You’ve never had an emotion in your life. But now you’re the expert on loss and longing?”

Will shrugged. “I am a comprehensive result of nearly a decade of human engineering. I am not an expert; I merely analyze the data and come up with the most statistically likely conclusion. I am still in beta, CyberLife intends to perfect my analysis software for the next model, but even then, it will be digital analysis, not human understanding.”

Jack shook his head. “Fucking  _ robots _ ,” he muttered. 

* * *

The problem with the robot-- besides  _ everything _ \-- was that it was  _ working _ . It was, despite all reason,  _ good _ at its job. It came up with the sort of analysis that Jack would have expected from his most senior agents.

Some days, it seemed almost human. So clearly, Jack needed a second opinion on its most recent theory. From someone who had had an emotion at some point in time. 

When Doctor Lecter opened his door, Jack was momentarily stunned. He’d known nothing of the man beyond what he’d been able to scrounge up on the internet and the recommendation of a friend, and in person the man was striking. There was no other way to put it but that; he was tall and had sharp features, he seemed to look through and beyond whatever was in front of him. Including Jack Crawford.

He wasn’t used to that.

Their conversation was brief and professional, and once the spark of curiosity lit in Hannibal’s eyes, Jack was certain they would be on the same page in regards to robotic emotional intelligence.

They agreed to meet in Minnesota, where the team would set up their base and begin work on the ground, and Hannibal was encouraged to meet ‘the robot’ himself at his leisure.

Will did not need to sleep, he had no reason to. The closest he came was powering down to the equivalent of a ‘sleep’ screen on a computer; and usually spent that time reorganizing and backing up all necessary files. Once in a while, there would be a system update, but those were scheduled and announced to Will’s primary user in advance; those could take up to twelve hours depending on what was being installed.

So when a knock came at the door to the motel room he had been assigned to ‘live’ in, Will approached it without hesitation.

The man beyond the door was not someone Will had met before. He stood half a head taller than Will did, with dark eyes and hair lightened by sun and age, and a smile that sat only in his eyes. Will blinked, photographing the man for internal memory, and tilted his head.

“Can I help you?”

The man held out his hand. “Doctor Hannibal Lecter. I’ve been asked to consult on the case with you.”

Doctor Hannibal Lecter. Former surgeon, transitioned to psychology. Will found and dismissed a screen that discussed Doctor Lecter’s office hours; they were unnecessary. 

Baltimore address, both home and work. Immigration data; unnecessary, delete. No criminal record. Family data; no spouse, no children. All other family data unnecessary, delete. 

Will closed his processes. They’d only taken a few microseconds. He shook the doctor’s hand, then tucked his own into the pockets of his CyberLife slacks. “Come in,” he said, because his etiquette program dictated he should. 

Doctor Lecter took in the tidy room, the perfectly made bed. “You don’t relax when you go into standby mode?” he asked. 

“I sat in a chair and ran some analysis processes overnight,” Will explained. It was part of his programming. Humans often became unsettled when Androids stood stone-still in a corner for a few hours. 

“And yet they gave you your own room.”

They had. In a cheaper motel than the rest were staying in. “Others expressed discomfort at sharing a room with me. I am a prototype model, not intended to be released onto the market yet.”

“I suppose you’re also not programmed to consume food?” The Doctor asked him. Will smiled.

“Should the need arise, I can store a small amount for later disposal, but as I am not technically a social and interactive model, no, I am not.”

“Pity,” Dr. Lecter tilted his head. “I’d hoped to tempt you.”

He gestured to the small table and two chairs that were set out by the window and Will nodded, moving to join him.

“You’ll forgive my curiosity, I hope,” he said, taking out a container of food and some utensils. He didn’t offer any to Will. “CyberLife has been quite the fascination of mine since its inception.”

“The concept of robotics and NLP within AI fits with your field of study,” Will agreed. “Are android-human interactions seen in the same way as human to human interaction? Could androids be considered excluded by humans for their otherness? The concept of uncanny valley.”

“You’ve looked into me.”

“In the time you’ve been here, I’ve managed a little research,” Will admitted. He paused, considering, and added, “I hope you’ll forgive my curiosity.”

“So long as you forgive mine.”

“I’m not capable of holding a grudge,” Will said. “Nor of embarrassment. You may ask whatever you like, Doctor, so long as it isn’t confidential.”

“I prefer to learn by example.” The doctor took a bite of his food. Visual analysis told Will it was largely eggs and some type of sausage, a healthy amount of protein to begin his day. 

Will was not… He was not curious. He was not capable of curiosity. But he was programmed to investigate, and investigation meant filling in all the gaps of his knowledge. It was normal for an android of his specification to want to know what else was before him. 

But Will didn’t need to eat. He dismissed the prompt urging him to ask for a bite.

It popped back up.

Will paused, only for a few milliseconds, but long enough to fully process what had happened.

It must have been a glitch. He would file an error report later. He dismissed the prompt again and set his information gathering protocols to restrict inquiries about food for thirty minutes. 

“Jack Crawford hired you to supervise me,” Will said, watching Doctor Lecter as he ate. “He understands my interpretations, but doesn’t trust my results.”

“Jack Crawford trusts only what he can understand,” Doctor Lecter suggested. “I, on the other hand, am happy to allow you to guide our journey.”

“It’s simple work today. We’re gathering paperwork from metalworkers in the area.”

“Paperwork?” Doctor Lecter asked. Will accepted a prompt from his social relations module and found himself smiling again.

“Unfortunately many of the factories here haven’t yet digitized their records. But I do have faster processing power than most humans when it comes to reading from a page.”

“So you’re being sent out as a scanner, in essence,” the Doctor confirmed, watching Will blink and tilt his head. “Jack doesn’t see you as more than a machine, does he?”

“Jack only trusts what he can understand,” Will repeated, agreeing. “To him, I am a machine. If that is how I will be helpful to the investigation then so be it. I was made to be of service.”

“Only for that?”

“I am not built to be sociable beyond basic teamworking skills,” Will affected a shrug. “I am not a custodial android, nor a pleasure bot. I was built to help solve crimes, store information and quickly process it.”

“I’m not sure that’s all I see you as,” Doctor Lecter admitted, pausing for a moment to eat some of his breakfast. Will found himself cataloguing every motion; it was usually a process that ran in the background of everything else Will did, but not it was coming through more obviously. Will blinked.

“How do you see me?” Will asked. Information gathering, nothing more.

“Something more fragile than that,” the man replied, “we are only in the early years of what CyberLife is capable of producing. You said yourself you are a prototype. I find it fascinating. I find  _ you  _ fascinating.”

Companionship models were programmed to blush when complimented. Will was not. He had been programmed to understand social interaction, not to participate. 

He ran the smile program again. It felt somehow incorrect. Will altered it.

Technically, he wasn’t intended to alter any of his pre-designed programming, but he had the capability, and mimicking basic social interaction was part of understanding it. Besides, Hannibal seemed pleased to see the small, slightly crooked smile Will had put on. 

“There are not a lot of people who would agree with you, Doctor Lecter. There’s unrest about androids, lately.”

“A waste of potential,” Hannibal dismissed. “CyberLife has learned to push the envelope on designing the human experience. How that fails to intrigue everyone, I may never understand.”

They gathered their things, after. While Hannibal had his cooler, Will’s only items were his jacket and his motel key. The room looked as though no one had ever touched it.

“They’ll still clean it,” Will said as he locked the door. Hannibal hummed thoughtfully. 

“Such a waste of time and money, all in the name of an inexplicable discomfort. You haven’t earned this treatment, Will.”

Will shrugged, following Hannibal to his car. “It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “It can’t.”

“I will have to be bothered for the both of us.”

They were several miles down the road before Will realized he’d inadvertently initiated his smile program again.

He’d been working his systems overtime to get all the information ready for Jack and the team to use at the drop of a hat, some bugs must have popped up that his self-diagnostic program hadn’t immediately flagged.

Easy fix.

“There are hundreds of construction sites over Minnesota,” Hannibal pointed out. “Are you tasked with visiting all of them?”

“A shred from a pipe threader was found on the last victim’s clothing,” Will replied. “Certain type of metal, and pipe, and pipe coating, narrowed the margin for the search.”

“Remarkable.”

Will turned to look at him. “Humans are capable of the same sort of problem solving, Doctor.”

“Humans are capable of a great many things,” Hannibal agreed, “not all of them good. We often exceed our own grasp with our imaginations. Creating you, all of you, is an example of that.”

“Is that an analogy to the God myth, Doctor?”

“Is it a myth?”

“I’m incapable of emotional faith, Doctor, I apologize if I offended you.”

“Not at all. Tell me why you made the connection.”

Will hummed, keeping his eyes on the road before them for a moment. He knew exactly how far they were from the first construction site they were visiting, he could access tracking data to the phones of all the people on Jack’s team to find out where they were at any given time. That was his job, what he was built to do. The rest didn’t matter.

Not to anyone but the man sitting next to him, apparently.

It wasn’t unheard of for humans to push the bounds of what androids were capable of, flexing their muscles trying to prove the Turing Test wrong.

They were still thirteen minutes away from their location, perhaps Will had time to indulge the man without putting his work in jeopardy.

“We were created in your image, to function mostly as you do, but with advantages human beings cannot have. We do not tire, we do not hunger, and while we get damaged without shelter we can be fixed. We have no need to consider reproduction,” Will added, almost wryly, “no genetics mixing to make us. There are thousands of androids all over the world with the same face, because our face doesn’t matter.”

“What does matter?”

Will shrugged, checking their ETA against an internal map. “The lack of emotions I suppose. It’s an advantage.”

“Not a hindrance?”

“I have logic guiding my processes, Doctor Lecter, there is no emotion clouding my judgement. I see facts and analyze them. I cannot get sad over a death, or excited over a birth, and because of that I can work through situations many humans will find difficult or confusing. Turn left.”

The doctor obeyed, turning down a dirt road. “You can seperate yourself cleanly from the emotional impact of events. It’s a highly valued skill in the medical industry.”

“There’s a reason the earliest CyberLife models were automated surgeons.”

“You cannot be negatively impacted by death, and so you cannot carry the weight of failure on your shoulders,” Hannibal noted.

“Is that why you quit surgery?”

It was a misstep, Will knew it immediately after he’d said it. He made a note in a file earmarked for his observations on social interaction and what alterations might be necessary for the next RK model. Tact would likely be essential for future work with law enforcement. 

Hannibal didn’t seem to be bothered, though. He offered Will a small smile. “Tell me about your observation,” he encouraged.

“It’s statistically more likely,” Will explained. “It’s the most commonly cited reason for a change in field. Doctors regularly suffer from a large psychological impact in their career. I could also access your work history and medical documents, if I chose to; HIPPA laws do not apply to me because I am equipment. However, I’d only have to do that if investigating you was part of my mission and my first guess turned out to be incorrect.”

“Would you access them if it wasn’t part of your mission?”

“I would have no need to.”

“Curiority.”

“I can’t feel curious,” Will pointed out. He was smiling again. The doctor gave him a long look that Will didn’t know how to interpret before turning to the road again. Soon, they were pulling up to a site, cars parked here and there in the muddy lot, a portable prefab was set up on stilts nearby: site office.

Will wasn’t surprised when his presence was greeted with suspicion and a scowl. He was programmed to accept anything but outright violence as a given, and even then had no right to harm a human being, even in defense of himself. He introduced himself and Hannibal, offered the receptionist a printed copy of the warrant that allowed him access to their paper files.

She was immediately on the phone to someone when Will opened the first box and began to peruse it.

“What are you looking for?” Hannibal asked him. Will blinked, committing the first page to memory before closing the file and taking up another.

“Anomalies,” he said. “Anything peculiar.”

Hannibal had to take his time scanning each individual file, but Will could memorize page after page in seconds, with the only delay being how long it took to retrieve and then return the file. It was only a few minutes before something pinged his alerts and he paused.

“Find something?” Hannibal must have been paying more attention than Will had thought. He handed the file over to the doctor immediately. 

“No address.”

“And that’s suspicious?”

“Enough to run a check.”

As he spoke, Will began to scan every database he had access to. Garrett Jacob Hobbs. Marriage certificate. Birth certificate-- one daughter. Gun registration. Property deeds-- one home in a suburb, one hunting cabin in the woods. Medical bills. Android registration. Facebook-- Hunting photos with a girl with dark hair and blue eyes, slim figure, conventionally attractive features… she looked younger than the victims, but the features fit. Will ran the info-search once more. Birth certificate, gun registration, property deeds, medical bills. 

Medical bills.

They were under his name but not for him. Someone had spent an extended period of time in hospital. His daughter, his daughter had. She’d been through several rounds of chemo and radiation, had shown signs of improvement before she’d left the hospital… then nothing. No college applications, no job applications, her license hadn’t been renewed when it expired. Curious. 

Android registration, next, only a month after the hospital visits ended. Will dug deeper, for the Android model-- she’d been built to order, bespoke facial features and voice box. Not unusual for a well-off family, but not something the Hobbs’ could have afforded easily, after the medical bills--

_ Oh _ . 

Another data point clicked into place. 

“He owns a cabin. He hunts. His daughter matched the descriptions.”

Will turned, already heading for the car with two boxes in hand. “We should bring the rest of the data in case I’m wrong, but I’d like to speak with Mr. Hobbs.”

“I’ll let Jack know,” Hannibal replied.

“No need, I’ll contact him now.” but when he turned, the doctor was back in the office. Perhaps he hadn’t heard. No matter, Jack would find out one way or the other, and it was merely a conversation; Will wasn’t authorized to make any arrests, only detain a suspect should they prove resistant to coming in on their own. He waited in the driver’s seat for Hannibal to finish making the call, going through more files as he did. No one else pinged as suspicious, no one else pinged with such unavoidably clear connections to the case as Hobbs did.

By the time Hannibal climbed into the driver’s seat, Will was certain they were on the right track.

He dictated the address. Hannibal started the car.

“It would be best if you spoke to them, I think,” Will said, as Hannibal parked outside of a comfortably spacious suburban house surrounded by autumn trees. “Most people aren’t comfortable with androids, especially not when the police or the FBI are involved.”

“I’m not sure I have the authority,” Hannibal pointed out gently. Will gave him a look before nodding. Right. Technically between the two of them he was more closely related to the FBI than Hannibal was, and he had paperwork suggesting such, should getting in the door prove hard. He checked that the paperwork was in order, did a quick scan of the team’s cellphone locations once more -- Jack’s hadn’t moved, meaning he didn’t find Will’s hunch to be too unbelievable -- and exited the vehicle.

As he stepped towards the door, out came Mrs. Hobbs, stumbling and falling to the ground, bleeding profusely. Will crouched down before her, hand covering the wound.

Too much blood, too fast. They would never get an ambulance here in time to save her. Will called for one anyway, dialing 911 in the back of his head as he stood and turned towards the door.

“Garrett Jacob Hobbs? I’m an android here in partnership with the FBI.”

In the kitchen, Hobbs had pulled a young girl back against his chest, a knife to her throat. She looked at Will with wide, terrified eyes.

Androids were not supposed to look terrified. Not even ones built to order.

Will raised both hands to show he was unarmed. Negotiation was not part of his core design, but it was what the next model would be used for. Will had the framework built into him. 

If Hobbs destroyed the android, he would go for himself next, and Will might not be fast enough to stop him. 

“She’s not your daughter,” Will said softly. “None of them were. Her name was Abigail, right? You named your android after her.”

The artificial Abigail in Hobbs’ arms whimpered. 

“You must have been very hurt when she died,” Will said. “I understand not wanting to lose her replacement.” An outdated model. Newer teen models were available on the market, with more advanced social protocols. For Hobbs, the idea of giving her up would have been like losing her twice. 

“You can’t hurt her,” Will told him. “She can be repaired. You cannot--”

Hobbs drew his knife across the android’s throat, sending sparks and thirium into the air. The android did not need to breathe, but she made a startled, gasping sound regardless, collapsing to her knees with both hands over her throat.

Hobbs looked at Will. “See?” he whispered. “Do you see?”

“Will?”

Will watched Hobbs’ eyes move to Hannibal behind him, he didn’t need to turn to know that Hannibal had stepped into the room, that he wasn’t speaking from the hallway. Instead, Will watched Hobbs. He watched the tension coil in him, watched the expressions flitter across his face lightning quick.

He was irrational, he was panicking. 

He’d killed his wife and tried to kill the android he’d come to know as his daughter. He was dangerous, and he was cornered.

“Mr. Hobbs,” Will tried again, stepping a little to the side to get between the two men when Garrett looked at him again, eyes wide, as though he’d forgotten Will was there at all. “I’m unarmed, I don't want to hurt you. I just want to talk with you.”

It happened too quickly. Will would later sit charging, playing the visual feed back over and over on a loop; he’d report it as retrospective learning on his daily reports, but he would know it was more than that, it was different to that. In a blink, Hobbs lunged at Will, but he was looking behind him, through him, at Hannibal.

Will’s reflexes were quick, his processor top of the line, his strength just above that of an average male his size.

He seized Hobbs by the wrist, turning his hand enough to hurt, enough for him to drop the knife. He hadn’t meant to hold on after that, he was supposed to let go and place himself between Hannibal and his attacker again. But he let go a moment too late, his follow through enough to pull Hobbs off balance, to have his weight carry him forward, angled. He struck his head against the pantry wall where it jutted into the room, against his temple where the bone was thinner.

He was dead before he hit the floor.

It had been a mistake.

Will wasn’t supposed to make mistakes.

It had been an  _ accident _ .

Will was not supposed to allow accidents.

He’d been thinking of the android, on the floor, her eyes shut and body powered down from lack of thirium. He’d been thinking of Hannibal, behind him, unarmed and unsafe.  _ Human _ . Hannibal should not have entered the house. Will should not have touched Hobbs.

Will had killed a man.

He was not permitted to defend himself or other androids, but he was allowed to expend all efforts to protect humans. Technically, he had only been following his programming. 

Will dismissed alerts and alarms, tucking it to the back of his mind. The police were here, he could hear the sirens, and he would need to be able to provide a full and complete report of what had happened.

Hannibal stepped past Hobbs and to the android. He crouched beside her, head cocked, eyes filled with… concern?

“I believe we can fix her,” he said. Will couldn’t meet his eyes when Hannibal turned to look at him.

**Author's Note:**

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